Follow the play of this deal and decide whether South, declarer at four spades, was playing rubber bridge or duplicate.

Note North's decision to raise spades on the second round instead of the more obvious rebid of two clubs. Depending on South's rebid, the latter would have created a problem on the next round since to then raise spades would show a hand considerably better than minimum. The spade raise had the advantage of setting a trump suit and limiting the hand to a minimum opening bid, and permitted South an easy jump to game.

Declarer won the opening lead in dummy and led a diamond. East shot up with the king and, when it held, returned the ten of clubs -- a suit preference signal showing a heart entry. West ruffed, duly led a heart to partner's ace and scored another club ruff for a one-trick set.

Obviously, the game was duplicate pairs, where an overtrick can mean the world. It took excellent defense and a terrible combination of circumstances to defeat the spade game. To start with, clubs had to be 5-1 -- about a 15 percent possibility -- and the defender with the long clubs had to have the ace of hearts. Add to that the virtuoso second-hand play required of East rising with the king of diamonds and you have quite a parlay.

At rubber bridge there is no problem. You simply draw trumps, run four clubs, discarding a diamond from hand and lead the queen of hearts, setting up a heart for the fulfilling trick.

(Tannah Hirsch welcomes readers' responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Media Services Inc., 2010 Westridge Drive, Irving, TX 75038. E-mail responses may be sent to gorenbridge@aol.com.)